A Sequel Report: Amazon’s Pervasive Surveillance Extends from Workers to Competitors and Consumers Too
New Open Markets Institute report details how Amazon has eyes on everything we do and uses its pervasive power to entrench and extend its monopoly
WASHINGTON – The Open Markets Institute released a new report today enumerating a plethora of predatory, exclusionary, and unfair practices that Amazon implements to surveil its competitors and consumers.
The report, “Eyes Everywhere: Amazon’s Surveillance Infrastructure and Revitalizing a Fair Marketplace,” follows Open Markets’ September 2020 report, “Eyes Everywhere: Amazon’s Surveillance Infrastructure and Revitalizing Worker Power.”
To stop Amazon from unfairly copying competitor products, self-preferencing products and services, and arbitrarily imposing terms and conditions that entrench and fortify monopoly power, the report proposes the following set of reforms to fundamentally restructure the corporation:
Congress must impose strict structural separations of Amazon’s business divisions
Congress must impose nondiscrimination and neutrality restrictions on Amazon’s operations
The FTC must enact substantive rules to prohibit exclusionary and restrictive contracts
Federal agencies must enforce the Robinson-Patman Act to prohibit predatory pricing and price discrimination
Federal, state, and private entities must enforce antitrust law regarding tying and bundling
Many of these proposals were promoted in the Biden administration’s recent executive order on competition policy and are actively being debated in Congress after the release of a bipartisan package of antitrust bills aimed at curbing the power of Big Tech.
In response, Daniel Hanley, a policy analyst at the Open Markets Institute and author of the report, issued the following statement:
“Amazon is a surveillance company, first and foremost. Surveillance of all parties—from workers to competitors to consumers—is a fundamental aspect of the corporation’s operations. It uses invasive surveillance tactics to enable and facilitate its predatory conduct and fortify its monopoly power.
“We’re heartened to see support from the current administration for taking real steps to meaningfully protect workers, market participants, and consumers from corporate concentration, but we need urgent action against Amazon—and all other monopolies—now.
“Until our enforcement agencies and elected officials take decisive action, Amazon will continue its relentless and vigorous pursuit to subjugate every last person to its surveillance practices. And in doing so, the corporation will grow only more powerful, more dangerous, and more exploitative.
“The United States needs a new economic agenda that puts economic liberty and social welfare ahead of corporate profits—no ifs, ands, or buts.”
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Read the full report here.